


i'll only hurt you if you let me (endgame spoilers)

by emmalauren



Series: drabbles/fluff/prompts [5]
Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: ENDGAME SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT FOR GODS SAKE DON'T READ THIS, F/M, PTSD Peter, Spoilers, no gwen death, this is post endgame so spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 04:51:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18631186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmalauren/pseuds/emmalauren
Summary: Peter's back from Dustville, and it's not MJ he turns to for help, it's Gwen Stacy. ENDGAME SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!





	i'll only hurt you if you let me (endgame spoilers)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm saying it one more time, endgame spoilers. I saw a Peter Parker x Sabrina Carpenter as Gwen Stacy edit on Instagram (@mcubrina) and I loved it, so I decided to make this. Sabrina as Gwen. Endgame broke me, so now I can break you!

Michelle Jones can see it in Peter Parker’s eyes when he comes back. He may walk into Midtown a week after they’d all appeared, molecules knitted together in a way they can almost feel - in a way they didn’t know about before - the same as most of the others, but everyone else is crying because it’s been five years and it’s felt like five hours. He has tears in his eyes for a very different reason. It’s no secret Tony Stark died bringing them all back, no secret that Peter had worked for him, but even Flash gives him his space, because Peter Parker’s hands are shaking for the first time, and there are scars on the back of his neck that weren’t there before. Whatever happened to Peter Parker on the MOMA field trip had clearly changed him. It’s a subtle change - perhaps she’s the only one who still sees it, two weeks later. But it’s there, all too apparent, in the form of a girl with blonde hair and eyes the color of the space stone. 

The part that hurts the most is that Michelle and Gwen are friends. They have been for years, and yes, they don’t talk that much anymore, but they’ve always been there for one another. Michelle made the decision to shut herself off from everyone, and Gwen had been the only one who had called bullshit. She was the only friend that had seen Michelle through her parent’s divorce, through dark nights, who had cried and wrapped her arms around Michelle the minute they had stepped back into Midtown. It was like having her heart cracked in half, watching as Gwen whispered away with Peter, smiling brilliantly at Michelle as she passed by, Peter doing the same, but the smile not quite meeting his eyes. 

What Michelle doesn’t know is how Peter and Gwen start talking again - they had been friends in middle school, but the Stark Internship, high school, and the spider bite had changed him tremendously. There had been no fight, instead, a simple growing apart that tore at both of them slowly, secretly, until eventually, they couldn’t feel themselves unraveling anymore. But the first day, when the people get too much, and it feels like his body is falling apart at the seams again, and he runs, to the nearest empty classroom, to pull his phone out of his pocket, dial the number, and realize, in the first ring, that no one’s going to answer, and Peter starts to hyperventilate, Gwen is the one who finds him, who breathes with him until he can hear her heartbeat, perfectly synced with his. 

It’s in the little moments - the day when Tony’s statue is erected in front of the old Stark Tower, the day that Steve has his heart attack. It doesn’t matter that he makes it through, it matters that the man who is supposed to save them all is dying in front of their eyes, and just like with Tony, there is absolutely nothing that Peter can do. It’s age, Aunt May tells him gently, but when Peter finds himself knocking on Gwen’s door that night, she doesn’t tell him anything, just listens and smiles and hugs him as he tells her who he is. It might be the one thing that kills Michelle when she finds out Peter told Gwen. She hadn’t managed to be that person for him before the snap. He had to let a stranger in rather than a friend, and she almost feels like that’s on her. 

Homecoming comes startlingly quickly, considering how much of a homecoming it really is - students who had graduated last year have since graduated college, and they’re still in sophomore year, feeling utterly lost and at sea as Betty starts to cry as the band begins to play. True, people had died when Maw had come to New York, but they were still alive, and they should be grateful. It had been a void of five years, with no obvious passage of time. Still, Michelle can understand why Betty is crying. Betty’s twin brother, Brandon, is no longer the same age as Betty - he now works for some corporation he had once campaigned against. Michelle can still remember the kid skateboarding down the halls and smoking weed on the field when he thought no one was looking. Time has passed, and it has passed them by. She understands all too well how Betty feels as Peter reaches out, and Gwen takes his hand, dancing together slowly to a tune Michelle can’t quite hear. 

The first weekend of winter break, Gwen invites Michelle over. There’s a small scar on her forehead Michelle had never noticed before, and a picture of her and Peter in the corner that Michelle definitely notices now, and she can’t help but feel out of place. She’s too big for the room, long legs folded underneath her awkwardly. Peter finally met a girl shorter than he was, and she can almost tell that the chair she’s sitting in has been used for make-outs and stitching Peter up dozens of times in the last four months. If Michelle notices the gaping absence of Gwen’s father at the table, she doesn’t mention it. He was one of the unluckiest - left entirely alone on the edge of a broken Earth, and he didn’t quite have the strength or the support system to stay. Michelle can tell Gwen thinks he’s dead, and if he’s not, well, they’ll never know. There’s a lot they’ll never know, and they all feel guiltier for it. When Gwen’s window rattles later, Gwen slams it shut, putting on the same brilliant smile and blaming it on the wind, before asking Michelle if she wants to go to the roof, Michelle knows she’s out of place, and she knows they’re all out of time, even if this is supposedly a second chance. She can see Gwen’s eyes sweeping the rooftops to find him, but it’s Michelle who finds him in the end, sitting on a rooftop two blocks down, mask off and hair blowing in the wind, looking too much like a broken, bloodied Peter Pan for her liking. She knew how that story ended, what Neverland really was, and she wasn’t quite ready for Peter Parker to slip away. 

Two weeks later, Gwen’s at ballet class again, training harder than ever for an audition at some prestigious ballet program Michelle didn’t quite have the strength to understand. She rarely had that kind of strength anymore. Michelle’s sitting on the floor, sketching her friend as she plies across the floor, turning so quickly her hair becomes a halo around her head. There’s a soft knock on the door, and Michelle almost drops her pencil as Peter Parker walks through the door with a split lip and a soft smile in his eyes. They barely say anything to each other, both watching Gwen as she moved across space, stretching and jumping until she’s reaching to Peter, laughing in a way that could never be mean, never could hurt anyone. Peter definitely doesn’t dance, but he’s strong, and it’s clear he’s watched Gwen, and her partner, Nate, go through these steps a thousand times. He’s steady as he lifts her clear over her head, moves in a way that isn’t quite musical but is definitely graceful in the way it flows. For the finale of the dance, he throws her in the air, in a way Michelle wishes she could sketch. It’s like watching a heartbeat, the way he catches her around her waist and lowers her back to the ground. When she kisses him, Michelle almost starts to cry. 

She thinks it’s early February - it’s still cold, but the snow that often decorates New York streets is almost entirely gone, and Gwen’s in a leather jacket, opposed to the heavy down jacket that Michelle is favoring. Michelle, while a talented artist, had never quite had the same skill with a camera - that’s entirely Gwen’s area, and while she refuses to be the subject of most of the pictures, she thinks it’s like watching Peter work. Even if she didn’t feel the way for him that she did, there’s something beautiful about the way they both move, as if the world revolves around their feet and they’re aware of the beauty of it. While Peter prefers to interact with it, Gwen’s satisfied with simply photographing it, making memories she can keep. As the red and blue blur moves in front of them as they’re crossing the street, Gwen takes a picture and sends a copy to Michelle two days later, once they’re fully developed. It makes Michelle wonder if the two have a psychic connection, because the picture is completely in focus, and the superhero has never looked more human before, dusty and real, and staring up at her. 

Gwen and Peter say their goodbyes in the New York City clocktower, a landmark they had both managed to miss. She had been chosen to join a traveling ballet company for a year as a way to practice before joining the New York City Ballet. Although they knew long-distance was an option, neither considered it fair, as they were entering their junior year of high school in four months, and Peter was leaving for a school trip in the summer. On top of everything, it would be too much to handle, and they both already bore too many scars. Michelle doesn’t feel happy about it, in fact, she’s heartbroken for her friends. But two months later, a month before the end of school, and a day after a late night phone call, when she talks to Peter, there’s a genuine smile in his eyes, and for now, that’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> oof not ready for far from home or got 8x03 haaaaa
> 
> as always, find me on tumblr @emma-laurennn with all your thoughts, comments, and ideas!!


End file.
